how much is tracked? how is it tracked? is it out of your hands? to what extent? how much info is being tracked/sold?

i don't mean to cause trouble, but an open discussion would at least appear to be honest............

Your info is not being shared or sold. We take member privacy seriously. The ads are from Google and it is out of our hands. We can request that a specific ad not be shown but those requests take a couple of days typically to process.

Google does not have access to your DC member info but they can feed ads based on your location and do. They can determine your location via your internet connectivity.

A different viewpoint here, nothing actually to do with advertising, but connected with Google.

Google will send an automated "Bot" into even closed MBA forums. Forums that remain invisible to non-members, but these can be gotten shot of easily in the administrative secion by forum staff, and I know this because I'm an admin for my own.

These Bots are harmless. Otherwise known as "Google Spiders", they do not collect members' IP addresses. They just nose about gathering info on certain key words their scientist masters command back at HQ.